Measures to Prevent Drug Money Laundering:

There are two documents, which have been mentioned earlier that are very important in controlling drug abuse because they affect the "sore points" of narco-business. Both of these documents need to be applied in the Russian Federation. One, from 12th December 1988, is a statement by the Committee on Banking Rules and Banking Supervision. Its aim is to prevent the criminal use of the banking system for laundering money gained from the trade in drugs. The other is the decision by the heads of state and government of the 7 leading industrial countries and by the European Commission Chairman. Under this decision taken at the 15th Economic Summit in Paris in July 1989, a Special Operations Group on financial issues was set up.

It must also be noted that the past few years have seen the convocation of numerous official and unofficial conferences, symposia and meetings of experts specializing in combating drug abuse, including one held in 1996 in Baku. They all worked out and recommended for implementation various measures to control narcotics.

Par. 2. Tendencies in the World Community's Reaction to Drug Abuse.

The world community counteracts the negative tendencies of drug abuse. This can be clearly seen in the materials of the world fora and in the international legal acts.

The Overriding Tendency of Combating Drug Abuse:

The overriding tendency is the expanding scale, and improvement of activities, as well as of the international legal regulations combating drug abuse. The core of this tendency is expressed in the following trajectory from the study of drug abuse, and exerting influence by the world community through establishing international control over legitimate distribution and consumption of drugs, to the adoption and implementation of the increasingly diversified, detailed, rationalized and tough measures combating illegal drug trafficking and criminal drug money laundering. These measures are being worked out by international agencies and organizations and are aimed at fully blocking the spread of narcotics.

This overall tendency can be seen in several of its more concrete manifestations, such as bringing the problem of narcotics to the forefront; expanding the sphere of the international legal regulation by amending existing measures and approving new international legal norms; making actions against drug abuse more purposeful by revealing its most vulnerable spots and controlling them by using new, more perfected international legal norms; ensuring a more universal, unified and standardized understanding of international legal terms regulating narcotics and; adopting international legal norms that pave the way for a real opportunity to combat narcotics; bringing international and national legal acts in line concerning actions against narcotics in the process of nations joining international legal acts and ratifying them; increasing the number of countries taking part in international conferences on actions against narcotics and the number of countries joining international legal acts and setting up and expanding the functions of specialized international agencies that work to combat narcotics.

Bringing to the Foreground Problems of Combating Drug Abuse:

Nearly 80 years since the convocation of the Shanghai Opium Commission in 1909, the first official body on the international scene that had drawn attention to the problems of narcotics, its regulation and gradual restriction, public attention to the problem has been steadily growing in proportion to the rise in the degree of public danger and the spread of narcotics. This is manifested by the increasing number of conferences, meetings, and symposia that concentrate on working out and adopting various international legal acts regulating measures to combat narcotics along with producing recommendations aimed at improving these types of measures and their application.

Expanding the Sphere of International Legal Regulation:

Expanding the sphere of international legal regulation means that each successive forum and each new international legal act against narcotics has focused on such areas of drug abuse, which have not been previously subject of international regulation.

In particular, the 1912 Hague Convention was the first to define types of narcotics - raw opium, smoke opium, medicinal opium, morphine and some others, which were placed under international control. Later this list was expanded. Under the Convention of 19th February 1925, some additional raw materials such as coca leaves, raw cocaine and Indian hemp (cannabis) were included. Also any other drug capable of causing harmful affects, according to the finding of a competent body, could be added to the list. Under the Protocol of 19th November 1948 the list was further extended by synthetic drugs that had come into being by that time and had not been regulated by any of the previously adopted international legal acts. The 1961 Uniform Convention contained a much longer list of narcotics allowing for further subsequent changes and additions.

The 1912 Hague Convention obliged the participating countries to pass national legislation controlling the production, distribution, importation and exportation of raw opium as well as measures scaling down production, domestic trade and consumption of smoke opium, banning its import and export. The Agreement of 11th February 1925 envisaged setting up a government monopoly for opium production and monopoly associations for opium trade. The Geneva Convention of 19th February 1925 introduced new measures, such as exercising control over the activities of persons who held permits to manufacture, import, export, sell, distribute and apply narcotics, as well as control over the premises where these persons practiced their trade. The Convention also limited the number of ports, cities and other populated centers through which the import and export of drugs was allowed, and urged the adoption of domestic legislation qualifying violation of these provisions of the Convention as criminal offence. The Convention of 13th July 1931 formulated the following additional measures: extradition of criminals for committing drug-related crimes; setting up domestic government agencies to implement the Convention's decisions and regulations, supervision over the trade in drug-bearing medicines, listed in the Convention, and a clamp-down on illegal drug trafficking. The Bangkok agreement of 27th November 1931 contained such amendments as limiting retail opium trade to government agencies only. For persons under 21 years of age visiting opium dens, was a criminal offence. The Convention of 26th June 1936 was the first to introduce the word "struggle" and provided for a much wider range of criminal drug-related offenses. Under the Protocol of 19th November 1948, the signatories had to inform the UN about any substance that had the potential of being abused in the future.